Musco, what happened to your 1 healer 1 tank per team?

Every match has been a parsing exercise and it’s boring.

8 matches, not one had less than 5 healers and some had 7 healers.

This isn’t match making and it’s clearly broken if we are only supposed to have 1 healer and 1 tank per team,

I’ve got plenty of screen shots if you need them

Maybe that's because that's all that's queing.

That may not even be implemented on the PTS because they're wanting as many people to queue & play as they can get. Setting up that rule, would hinder Q pops. (Just like it's going to do in real time on servers.)

Also if that is implemented in the PTS right now, if both teams have numerous healers, it's working as intended. Equal footing across the board.

My experience is that there seems to be an even number of healers tanks per team it still allows more than 2/2 per team instead of spreading them out per multiple warzones.

Though I haven't seen 7. most was 3 healers vs 3 healers. I wonder if its counting Tanks and healers as the same which leaves 4 slots per warzone team.

This is what Eric posted

Matchmaking will never place more than 2 tanks or healers on the same team in a Warzone or 1 tank or healer for an Arena.

-eric

I obviously misread and thought it was only 1 healer per team, but that’s just arena. From his post, these are the possibilities in 8 man.

* 2 healers per team

* 2 tanks per team

* 1 healer + 1 tank per team.

But this is obviously not happening. We should not be seeing 3-4 healers on a team. We also shouldn’t be seeing more than 2 tanks with healer(s).

This is a bug or Musco got it wrong. Which ever it is we need clarification.

If it’s not a bug and working as intended, then it needs to be addressed because this was a major problem in the meta and was asked to be fixed repeatedly

My experience is that there seems to be an even number of healers tanks per team it still allows more than 2/2 per team instead of spreading them out per multiple warzones.

During the last playtest I've got a feeling the matchmaking is not implemented at all. On this pic you can see 4 healers in my team and only 2 in another. Looks like there were no backfills. Maybe they got 2 heals and 2 tanks? But protection numbers are not that high.

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I was looking forward to matchmaking and limiting the number of healers/tanks, and I'm dissapointed to see that it doesn't work. As a healer main I'd rather spend a few minutes in queue and eventually get 2 heals vs 2 heals match (or 1 heals vs 1 heals arena) than get an instant pop with 3-4 healers per team.

During the last playtest I've got a feeling the matchmaking is not implemented at all. On this pic you can see 4 healers in my team and only 2 in another. Looks like there were no backfills. Maybe they got 2 heals and 2 tanks? But protection numbers are not that high.

.

Mmm it’s hard to see the numbers from my phone but I’d guess they were skank tanks.

Edit: Now that I could actually see the numbers yeah I doubt they were skanks.

As a couple of others have mentioned, I suspect that the limited sample size is at least partially to blame.

Since there seem to be quite a few healers on the PTS, it is placing 2-3 per team (which is what I saw for most of my games at least last night) rather than just limiting it to 2 healers like it will likely do on live servers (at least that's how I read Musco's post, perhaps further clarification from the Devs would be handy since people are interpreting it in different ways).

Tanks are a little harder to tell apart from skank tanks on the scoreboard. So it's harder to tell how many actual tanks are on each team. (which is why I like Trixxie's suggestion of putting roles on the Ops frame in WZ's too (and not just Arena's)). But from what I saw there did seem to be at least 1 actual tank per team for the most part? But without inspecting gear, you can't always tell from WZ performance alone (and even that's iffy ).

If there is another playtest, I'm personally going to go DPS (incognito though ).

As a couple of others have mentioned, I suspect that the limited sample size is at least partially to blame.

 

Since there seem to be quite a few healers on the PTS, it is placing 2-3 per team (which is what I saw for most of my games at least last night) rather than just limiting it to 2 healers like it will likely do on live servers (at least that's how I read Musco's post, perhaps further clarification from the Devs would be handy since people are interpreting it in different ways).

But we are testing for bugs. Changing the system on the pts because there are too many healers over there negates the testing to see if it will work on the live servers.

I can’t see them doing that or what’s the point of testing. It’s more likely a bug that is allowing more than 2 healer or 1 healer + tank or 2 tanks per team.

If it was working as Musco said it should, we would be able to see how well it works and people who heal could see if it affects their queue pops and the rest of us could see if it slows down the whole queue

I am going to triple check with the team but I believe that what you are describing is still possible, just very unlikely. Basically, we hard enforce the rules I outlined, to a point. After a certain amount of time has passed the matchmaking will start to loosen rules to make a match happen.

 

Although we want matches to be as even as possible within the rules, at a certain point just having a match pop is more important. This is being compounded by a small population queuing on PTS and the makeup of those players. We are reviewing the data for the queues and matches to ensure we are seeing the intended behavior.

 

These reports are super helpful though as it may highlight an issue. The team is looking at everything!

 

-eric

Eric, the problem with quantity over quality, ie quicker pops, is that you end up with people rage quiting when they see these 3-4 healers in a team.

After “8” matches that never had less than 5 healers in the game, it became boring and frustrating. It also became impossible to test your changes for void star.

If it had not been the test server, I would have left those matches because they were not fun. If I wanted to parse dps numbers I could easily do that on a dummy.

In the end I got so frustrated that every match was like this, that I logged off the pts to go back to the live servers.

Also, the wait times for those matches were no more than a few minutes, so it’s not like they needed to quickly fill the teams to get fast pops.

From my perspective, it looked like the limited healer system was either not on or it was bugged.

I took screen shots of the scoreboards for most of the matches. If you need them to show the proof to the team, please let me know.

I am going to triple check with the team but I believe that what you are describing is still possible, just very unlikely. Basically, we hard enforce the rules I outlined, to a point. After a certain amount of time has passed the matchmaking will start to loosen rules to make a match happen.

 

Although we want matches to be as even as possible within the rules, at a certain point just having a match pop is more important. This is being compounded by a small population queuing on PTS and the makeup of those players. We are reviewing the data for the queues and matches to ensure we are seeing the intended behavior.

 

These reports are super helpful though as it may highlight an issue. The team is looking at everything!

 

-eric

The sole reason for that is almost 100 % sure the fact that not that many players joined the Test pvp sessions, especially the pops after the official 2 hour time span was over. I checked the population on both faction sides server wide like half an hour after the core test time was over. There were like 7 on the Rep and 27 on Imp total serverwide. It's normal that match maling becomes difficult then. We still had pops but some of these weird team ones.

From my perspective, it looked like the limited healer system was either not on or it was bugged.

 

I took screen shots of the scoreboards for most of the matches. If you need them to show the proof to the team, please let me know.

I agree with Trixxie. It sure looks like the limit healer system was not working. I also took some screens, of the first 8 matches I had from the "morning" session on Saturday. Every single match had more then 2 healers (or more than 1 for the arenas) per side. I thought it might be backfills creating the large number of healers, so I included that info too (based on a side having more than 8 people listed on the score screen at the end) - but in most cases the side that did NOT have backfills had more healers. Just judging from the healing output vs. dps output, this is what I counted:

#1: arena: 1 healer v 2 healers, (2 healer side got that 2nd heal as a backfill)

#2: 3 healers v 2 healers (2 healer side got 2 backfills)

#3: 3 healers v 3 healers (one side had 2 backfills)

#4: 4 healers v 3 healers (3 healer side got a backfill)

#5: 3 healers v 2 healers (2 healer side got a backfill)

#6: 3 healers v 4 healers (3 healer side got 2 backfills)

#7: 2 healers v 3 healers (no backfills)

#8: arena, 2 healer v 2 healer (no backfills)

A quick glance over my screens shows pretty much the same healers showing up in all the matches, and with the DPS a mix of people. I do think there were a disproportionately large number of healers on the PTS. But it seems like, to me given what was described for match making, what would happen in that case is that it would be picking 4 healers total, and the rest DPS/tanks (but there were no tanks ) and off we go. And the left over healers would have to wait on the sidelines until the current matches were over... and then those 2nd-draft healers (not 2nd best, of course!) would get the 2nd round of matches with mostly the same DPS involved. But I haven't seen any healers reporting that "OMG had to wait SO LONG on the PTS to get a match!".

Bioware obviously has more stats than we do about this (hopefully!) but it sure seemed borked given who was showing up in every single match.

Although we want matches to be as even as possible within the rules, at a certain point just having a match pop is more important.

I disagree with that stance; most veteran players can play multiple classes/roles. For example, I like playing a healer, so I always queue PvP as a healer, but I could just as easily spec DPS.

If you enforce a 2 (maybe 3) healer limit on teams, and then healers have a longer waiting time than DPS, the problem will sort itself out naturally. Some healers who want faster pops will switch to DPS, and there will be less healers in queue.

If you just pop the match with more healers, nothing will change. I'd rather be forced to DPS than have BGs with too many healers.

I am going to triple check with the team but I believe that what you are describing is still possible, just very unlikely. Basically, we hard enforce the rules I outlined, to a point. After a certain amount of time has passed the matchmaking will start to loosen rules to make a match happen.

 

Although we want matches to be as even as possible within the rules, at a certain point just having a match pop is more important. This is being compounded by a small population queuing on PTS and the makeup of those players. We are reviewing the data for the queues and matches to ensure we are seeing the intended behavior.

 

These reports are super helpful though as it may highlight an issue. The team is looking at everything!

 

-eric

As long as the "loosened rules" are about breaking the limits rather than breaking the balance, I think we can live with that. I mean, if the worst case scenario is 3+ healers in each group it is still an improvement from the currently possible 3 healers versus 0 healers...

I disagree with that stance; most veteran players can play multiple classes/roles. For example, I like playing a healer, so I always queue PvP as a healer, but I could just as easily spec DPS.

If you enforce a 2 (maybe 3) healer limit on teams, and then healers have a longer waiting time than DPS, the problem will sort itself out naturally. Some healers who want faster pops will switch to DPS, and there will be less healers in queue.

If you just pop the match with more healers, nothing will change. I'd rather be forced to DPS than have BGs with too many healers.

But the game was not designed only for veteran players, and there are also many veteran players who play only a single role (can play whatever healer, but can't DPS or tank nearly as well). They don't deserve to suffer for it...

You guys are missing the point. On the PTS at that time the players in que were (rough guestimate) 55% DPS/Tanks and 45% healers in que. Which means it if follows the rules then many healers wouldn't have gotten a pop because for them there weren't enough other roles to make multiple matches. So the matchmaking recognizes this and stats making the matches with the 3-4 healers.

On the live servers where at normal times the que player base is 90% tank/DPS and 10% healers it will work out much better.

You guys are missing the point. On the PTS at that time the players in que were (rough guestimate) 55% DPS/Tanks and 45% healers in que. Which means it if follows the rules then many healers wouldn't have gotten a pop because for them there weren't enough other roles to make multiple matches. So the matchmaking recognizes this and stats making the matches with the 3-4 healers.

 

On the live servers where at normal times the que player base is 90% tank/DPS and 10% healers it will work out much better.

I could be misinterpreting what Eric said, but I think it's more of a "after 5 minutes without enough people for a optimal pop, there can now be a max of 3 heals per team instead of 2, after 10 minutes there can now be a max of 4 heals instead of 3, etc." and not a check based on % of each role in queue.

Honestly, they do need to have something like this. In live it probably wont happen much, and if it does they should increase the time, but at a certain point you should just get a pop, and if you arent willing to play in a match with more than 2 heals, quit and log off, because at that point there just arent enough people anyway.

As long as the "loosened rules" are about breaking the limits rather than breaking the balance, I think we can live with that. I mean, if the worst case scenario is 3+ healers in each group it is still an improvement from the currently possible 3 healers versus 0 healers...

Sorry Rafi, but that isn’t the case. 3 healers per team is even worse than 3-0 healer teams. At least the game will end

faster and some players can actually kill stuff.

When you have 3-3 or even 2-2, the whole match becomes one big parsing exercise and isn’t fun for anyone but those healers. The game’s also go for longer, which I believe is the opposite of what Bioware are going for in this patch.

Stalemates don’t help anyone, especially testing on the pts.

If I may offer a reason for so many healers on the pts? They maybe there to see how this new system will work and how long they may have to wait for pops if there are a lot of healers in the queue.

But relaxing the rules or system to accommodate those extra healers, they are doing more harm than good.

First, if they do impliment it properly on the live servers and it’s bugged, they won’t know until it’s live. That negates the whole point of pts testing to reduce bugs going live.

Second, they distort the other testing on changes in maps like Void Star because the matches are statements and you can’t test it.

Third, it gives the wrong impression to those healers that they should just keep trying to over populate matches because the queue will relax the rules if they can get enough of them in it,

Point number 3 is particular troubling because people who like to over stack healers maybe trying to work out tactics on the pts to allow them to overload (exploit) the queue rules so they can keep having 3-4 healers on a team.

It’s for those reasons that those rules should be ridgid and not flexible as it allows the system to be exploited for certain individuals.

My honest opinion is even two healers per match is too much under the current meta because all classes have pretty good DCDs and healers are mostly OP because of it.

I’d be happy if it was limited to 1 healer and 2 tanks per match.

just replace empty slot by AI... issue solved !

A better solution is starting the match with less players or just making arena matches.

I could be misinterpreting what Eric said, but I think it's more of a "after 5 minutes without enough people for a optimal pop, there can now be a max of 3 heals per team instead of 2, after 10 minutes there can now be a max of 4 heals instead of 3, etc." and not a check based on % of each role in queue.

 

Honestly, they do need to have something like this. In live it probably wont happen much, and if it does they should increase the time, but at a certain point you should just get a pop, and if you arent willing to play in a match with more than 2 heals, quit and log off, because at that point there just arent enough people anyway.

Well they stated that the goal was faster matches and more pops (besides more even matches) so waiting x minutes to go by is counter to that. Matchmaking is trying to set up matches as quick as possible if there is a que.

Sorry Rafi, but that isn’t the case. 3 healers per team is even worse than 3-0 healer teams. At least the game will end

faster and some players can actually kill stuff.

 

When you have 3-3 or even 2-2, the whole match becomes one big parsing exercise and isn’t fun for anyone but those healers. The game’s also go for longer, which I believe is the opposite of what Bioware are going for in this patch.

 

 

Stalemates don’t help anyone, especially testing on the pts.

 

Snip

 

My honest opinion is even two healers per match is too much under the current meta because all classes have pretty good DCDs and healers are mostly OP because of it.

I’d be happy if it was limited to 1 healer and 2 tanks per match.

Firstly it does help the pts because you can actually see match making working. If it was 3-0 healers the match making obviously failed. With the surplus of healers we can actually see how match making behaves. It doesn’t matter how long the actual match is because the purpose is to test matchmaking not the actual match. (Well ok yes for the insta kill spots but that’s a different topic). Secondly I prefer a match to have 3-3 bacuase over 3-0 because of several reasons. Mainly it makes winning the warzone by other tactics than just dpsing. And besides. I pvp to enjoy the matches not just to complete a match quota.

And no you can’t just limit 1 healer per match because not all healers are the same. Op heals is sustain hps, sorc is hybrid (quasi) and merc is burst hps. It could completely lob side a match just as bad as 3-0.